Israel First, Citizens Last |
Sharren Haskel has proposed an elegant solution to Israel’s democratic deadlock: everyone may vote, but not every vote may be allowed to govern.
Her proposed role for Israel First is remarkably clear. The party would prevent Benjamin Netanyahu from rebuilding his familiar alliance with the ultra-Orthodox parties, prevent Gadi Eisenkot from forming a government dependent on Arab parties, exclude Yair Golan, and then compel Netanyahu and Eisenkot to govern together. The language is one of healing, competence, responsibility and national unity. The mechanism is a prior decision about which elected representatives are politically admissible.
This is not merely coalition strategy. It establishes a hierarchy between votes before the votes are even cast.
Arab citizens may participate in elections, but their representatives are not to be permitted to convert those votes into governmental power. Haredim may participate, but their parties become unacceptable when their political price grows too high. The Jewish left may win seats, but parts of it can be excluded as insufficiently Zionist. Netanyahu, however, remains available for government.
Political legitimacy no longer follows from citizenship, elections or parliamentary representation. It is granted through ideological certification. Some mandates are considered capable of producing government; others are treated as numerical residue. The ballot remains equal only until it threatens to become effective.
This mechanism deserves more than electoral analysis because it touches a deeper question about Jewish political form. We have allowed ourselves to be absorbed too completely by the modern grammar of sovereignty: survival, majority, force and national necessity. In doing so, we risk forgetting one of the strongest disciplines of Jewish thought: every human form must remain exposed to criticism precisely when it begins to speak as though it were revealed truth.
No government, party, majority or state becomes sacred because it calls itself Jewish. It makes no difference whether the claim arrives dressed as religion, security, liberal competence or national unity. The moment a political formula presents........